Rockwell Kent 1939 Tuberculosis Christmas Seals

One full sheet (100) of Rockwell Kent's 1939 "Angel of Mercy" Christmas Seals Stamps in ABSOLUTELY PRISTINE original condition.

 The Angel of Mercy, painted by Rockwell Kent's hand, levitates with her feet pointed toward the Earth and hands extended perpendicularly. Dressed in white, as pale as a tuberculosis patient's face, she drops yellow flowers from her palms and suggests that Americans "Buy Christmas Seals, Protect Your Home from Tuberculosis."

 The year was 1939, and Kent had been chosen to design the United States Christmas Seals for the National Tuberculosis Association. In November of that year, he presented a copy of his Christmas Seals art to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mrs. Ernest Grant, the director of the District of Columbia Tuberculosis Association. A photo of the occasion remains in the Rockwell Kent papers, Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian Institution.

 Kent only designed one set of Christmas Seals in his lifetime.

 Born in Tarrytown Heights, N.Y., in 1882, he was an accomplished painter and illustrator by the time he bought Asgaard Farm near AuSable Forks in 1927. Kent won commissions to paint wall murals at public buildings, galleries and museums. He made illustrations for billboards, printed pages and the popular press, including the covers of Scribner's magazine and the 1939 "Home Decorator and Color Guide" for Sherwin-Williams. Kent was well-known as an artist, an author and a political activist.

 He died in Plattsburgh in 1971.